It's not too late to take action for Kevin Cooper! Kevin Cooper, who has been on death row in California for 25 years, is asking outgoing governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to commute his death sentence before leaving office on January 2, 2011. Kevin Cooper has consistently maintained his innocence of the four murders for which he was sentenced to death. Since 2004, a dozen federal appellate judges have indicated their doubts about his guilt. Urge Governor Schwarzenegger to grant clemency for Kevin Cooper. Read Nick Kristof's recent NYT column, "Framed for Murder?", for more on the case. More information about this case at the Free Kevin Cooper website.
On the book front, listen to this interview with David Garland, author Peculiar Institution: America's Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition, who discusses why capital punishment continues in the United States despite the abolition of the death penalty elsewhere in the Western world. The book has drawn much attention based on former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens' review in the New York Review of Books.
Not done with Pete Seeger yet! First, here is the lovely group of Readers assembled to celebrate Pete and the season. As always, looking sharp!
Here are a couple of clips from Pete's show Rainbow Quest singing holiday songs with Bessie Jones. This seemed like the most appropriate way to wish you all good cheer on this day. Thanks so much for interest in the blog and our activities! Keep singing into the New Year!
Starting with Human Rights Day (December 10) Amnesty International is launching it's year long celebration of it's fiftieth anniversary. If you missed it, AIUSA Executive Director, Larry Cox was on NPR's Talk of the Nationdiscussing the history of the organization last week. If you'd like to celebrate with a book, like a good Rights Reader, check out the beautiful DIGNITY: In Honor of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,
I missed another anniversary back in October-- the blogiversary of Rights Readers in 2005. To celebrate, I've given the blog a little makeover. Let me know what you think!
This month we read The Protest Singer: An Intimate Portrait of Pete Seeger by Alec Wilkinson. Wilkinson writes regularly for the New Yorker and you can check out some of his other pieces, including his most recent about rhythm and blues singer Bettye LaVette, here. If you'd like to learn a little about his background, you can listen to this interview.
As for Pete Seeger, here's a vintage (1984) Fresh Airinterview. And then just last August, NPR's Talk of the Nation had Pete on to discuss his latest Grammy-nominated album, Tomorrow's Children made with children from his home near Beacon, New York and featuring new songs on environmental themes. After a bit of a slow start the interview really kicks in when Pete can't resist breaking into song and gives a nod to Rights Readers favorite Wangari Maathai ("There should be a song about her.") The Huffington Post also has an interview,
MR: And might you have any advice to new artists? PS: Sing in front of as many different kinds of people as you can. Old folks, middle age folks, kids, infants, and sing for people you disagree with too. Learning how to communicate with people we disagree with is something the whole world has to learn.
"In 1910," he said, "John Phillip Sousa wrote, 'What will happen to the American voice, now that the phonograph has been invented?' And it's true—parents don't sing lullabies to their children anymore, they'll put them in front of the TV to fall asleep. Men used to sing together in bars all around the country—now there's a TV or loud music there instead."
We've previously mentioned the PBS documentary The Power of Song (view the trailer here) and the Smithsonian-Folkways podcasts. Take note also that the PBS site has bonus interviews and a handy timeline, while the Folkways Seeger profile also comes with a slideshow and video and audio features. And please do check out the Beacon Sloop Club and the Clearwater. Have you found yourself humming along while reading? Ready to burst into song? Look to Sing Out! for inspiration.
The episode concerning the censorship of Pete's appearance on the Smothers Brothers is described in fascinating detail by David Bianculli in Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour". He also tells the story in this Fresh Air interview (transcript). Here is the performance of the American War Songs Medley from the show and the censored clip of "Waist Deep In The Big Muddy". I like this clip of "Wimoweh" and "Where have all the Flowers Gone?" better though, because no Pete Seeger performance is complete without the audience reaction (and who doesn't love Tommy Smothers?).
The episode of Rainbow Quest featuring Roscoe Holcomb mentioned in the book is excerpted here. There are just too many good Seeger YouTube clips to share in one post so we promise to think of more excuses to post them in the future. By popular request though, here is Pete and Friends performance of Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" at the Obama inauguration concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Check out this video from the kids at Clearwater who have added some new verses to "This Land is Your Land."
This Human Rights Day we pause to honor Peace Laureate Liu Xiaobo by acknowledging the empty chair at the Nobel ceremonies. Amnesty International urges you to take action:
Nobel Peace Prize recipient Liu Xiaobo was charged with "inciting subversion of state power" and given an 11-year prison sentence on December 25, 2009 simply for co-authoring a proposal for political and legal reform in China. On October 7, the Beijing Municipal Higher People's Court upheld Liu Xiaobo's prison sentence. Urge Chinese authorities to release Liu Xiaobo immediately and unconditionally.
And we urge you to slip in a reference to Group 22 Pasadena's Chinese prisoner of conscience case Gao Zhisheng too. Check out the Globe and Mail's profiles of a courageous "Gang of 10" dissidents to watch, including Gao. To learn more about Liu Xiaobo, visit PEN's resource page. You might also want to check out PEN President Kwame Anthony Appiah's piece on Liu in Foreign Policy: China's Burden of Shame which also mentions Gao. The NYT offers a Liu poem today.
Though now better off than they have ever been in material terms, the Chinese people are denied any real opportunity to retain and refine their own dignity beyond the quest for wealth and luxury goods. Liu's prize is a rebuke to the regime, because it rejects the dogma that nothing but the pursuit of economic interest matters.
We wouldn't want to overlook the Nobel Literature Laureate, Mario Vargas Llosa. Many years we enjoyed reading Death in the Andes. Rights Readers author Daniel Alarcon (Lost City Radio) reacts to the news of his award on WNYC and offers up a bit of fan worship in the Paris Review. Vargas-Llosa's Nobel speech is well worth the read for this thoughts on reading, exile, and human rights, not missing the chance to acknowledge the empty chair himself,
...a dictatorship represents absolute evil for a country, a source of brutality and corruption and profound wounds that take a long time to close, poison the nation’s future, and create pernicious habits and practices that endure for generations and delay democratic reconstruction. This is why dictatorships must be fought without hesitation, with all the means at our disposal, including economic sanctions. It is regrettable that democratic governments, instead of setting an example by making common cause with those, like the Damas de Blanco in Cuba, the Venezuelan opposition, or Aung San Suu Kyi and Liu Xiaobo, who courageously confront the dictatorships they endure, often show themselves complaisant not with them but with their tormenters. Those valiant people, struggling for their freedom, are also struggling for ours.
This month we are reading The Protest Singer: An Intimate Portrait of Pete Seeger by Alec Wilkinson. This is a book you need to listen to with a soundtrack. Now, if your old Pete Seeger records are unplayable due to the fact that you no longer own a turntable to play them on, you can go to the Smithsonian-Folkways website and click on the "radio" button and chances are Pete will show up sooner or later and you'll discover some other unique musicians on your way there.
I'm sure many of our Loyal Readers have already seen the Pete Seeger PBS American Masters documentary The Power of Song, but take note that Smithsonian-Folkways offers three podcast series combining musical selections and interviews and each one has a special Pete Seeger episode available. You can listen online or search iTunes to download.
The "Folkways Collection" series explores the history of Folkways records and an overview of the record label's vast holdings. Episode 12 is dedicated to Pete Seeger, but several of the others, such as those on music of the labor and civil rights movements and the episode on children's music also feature our friend Pete. Well worth a listen.
Episode 20 "Pete Did That?" of theSounds to Grow On series also explores the many sides of Pete Seeger's music. Loyal Readers may also be interested in some of the other programs in this series, for example "Songs of Struggle and Protest" or "Sacco and Vanzetti."
Finally, the Sound Sessions series also has a Pete Seeger episode in addition to features on Seeger friends Woody Guthrie and Paul Robeson. Happy listening!
At the recent Amnesty International USA Western Regional conference, Group 22 Pasadena was thrilled to receive the "Local Group of the Year" award. Behold Loyal Readers and coordinators Lucas Kamp and Kathy Hansen accepting the award from Western Region Field Organizer Kalaya'an Mendoza. The group followed this up with a bit of publicity in the Pasadena Weekly. And we are not resting on our laurels by any means! Next up is the annual Write for Rights Global Writeathon--your chance to send greetings to human rights defenders around the world who need a word of encouragement and to write a few letters to their governments urging them to take a stand for human rights. The Group 22 event will be at Cafe Culture (1359 N. Altadena Drive, Pasadena) on December 11. Drop by anytime between 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. If you can't make that, additional events are being held around the country in conjunction with International Human Rights Day (December 10). Check the Amnesty International USA Write for Rights site for a writeathon near you or find materials to do your writing from your own home. For a bit of inspiration, here is Bu Dongwei's testimony about the power of your letters. Group 22 followed Bu's case closely and recently welcomed him to a monthly meeting.
This month we are reading The Protest Singer: An Intimate Portrait of Pete Seeger by Alec Wilkinson. We will have more Seeger resources to explore in an upcoming post, but among other themes, the book explores Seeger's experiences as a blacklisted musician in the 1950s and with censorship of his performance on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the 1960s. Freemuse, the independent international organization which advocates freedom of expression for musicians and composers worldwide, awarded Seeger their Freemuse Award in 2009 for his commitment to musicians' freedom of expression. You can hear his grandson's acceptance speech here. This year, Freemuse has an album out (for the music lover on your holiday gift list?) called Listen to the Banned, a collection of songs from artists around the world who have faced censorship or had their music banned. Artists from Afghanistan to Zimbawe are featured and you can learn more about their music and struggles to be heard at the website for the project. Here's a glimpse of one of them, Mahsa Vahdat of Iran, the Freemuse Award Winner for 2010. Women in Iran can practice various musical forms but cannot sing in public for mixed audiences. They can participate in women-only concerts, but Mahsa Vahdat refuses to perform for women only. Here she is explaining her commitment to freedom of musical expression:
In my previous post on Hector Aristizabal's The Blessing Next to the Wound, I mentioned an older Uprising Radio interview with our friend Sonali Kolhatkar. Today she has a fresh interview with Hector and his co-author Diane Lefer. Again, don't miss Hector at Vroman's in Pasadena this Friday, November 12th, 7:00 pm, then join us for a discussion of the book on Sunday, Nov. 21, 6:30 pm, also at Vroman's.
Next, be sure to checkout the website for ImaginAction, where you can learn about Hector's work to bring about healing and social justice through theater and the arts (you can also keep track of Hector's theater projects on Facebook). To learn more about "Theater of the Oppressed" listen to Rights Readers friend and host of Uprising, Sonali Kolhatkar interview Hector about Augusto Boal, founder of the movement. Then grab the first chance to be a part of one of his workshops!
A brief video introduction to our author:
A couple of video glimpses of Hector in theater mode can be found here and here. You might also check out this old Pasadena Weekly profile: Playing through the pain. For more on Hector and School of the Americas watch check here.
Men are changing behavior, too, said Aristizábal, noting the movement called La Nueva Masculinidad and even a group called El Machismo Mata, in which men try to end the ways in which violent behavior has become connected to the male identity. "They did a scene in which one guy is knocked over during a soccer game. One member of his team just says, 'Get up, jerk,' and when another player asks instead if he's OK and tries to give him a hand, the others shout homophobic insults at him for being soft and showing concern. So what do you do in that moment? How do you respond to the situation?"
It's Hector month at Rights Readers and Vroman's is the place to be. Join our Loyal Readers there to support Hector and his work!
For February we have chosen Toni Morrison's A Mercy:
In the 1680s the slave trade in the Americas is still in its infancy. Jacob Vaark is an Anglo-Dutch trader and adventurer, with a small holding in the harsh North. Despite his distaste for dealing in “flesh,” he takes a small slave girl in part payment for a bad debt from a plantation owner in Catholic Maryland. This is Florens, who can read and write and might be useful on his farm. Rejected by her mother, Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master's house, and later from the handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved, who comes riding into their lives. A Mercy reveals what lies beneath the surface of slavery. But at its heart, like Beloved, it is the ambivalent, disturbing story of a mother and a daughter-a mother who casts off her daughter in order to save her, and a daughter who may never exorcise that abandonment.
This month we are reading Forest Gate by Peter Akinti. Kicking off our supplemental links this mont, Akinti introduces his book in this video:
The book comes with a supplemental essay and interview. If your edition doesn't have them, check here. The Bookbag has an interview,
BB: For this ex-Londoner, Forest Gate draws some very painful parallels between war-torn Somalia and life on some of London 's streets. Yet Armeina defends London. Why does she?
PA: When I wrote Forest Gate one of my aims was to provide a snapshot of young black people in London, to try to paint a truer picture of their mixed identity and or culture. I wanted to show what life was like under the full effects of constant migration; how much globalization is affecting us in ways we are yet able to fully grasp. I didn't want to compare London and Somalia. I wanted to compare two lives that clash in London; to show how very different two young black people living in London might be, the causes and effects of that interaction.
And SoulCulture asks about the reality behind the fiction,
SoulCulture: The book contains a lot of difficult but compelling chapters vividly describing sexual abuse and violence. Was this a realistic representation of their stories or extreme content needed to make a certain point?
Peter Akinti: Some of it is definitely to make a point. There’s a point where two boys get stopped and searched by the police and someone asked me what I thought about stop-and-search. They thought it was me trying to say something about stop and search but it wasn’t, it was much more to do with an experience I had with my niece.
One of her friends got involved in something crazy and I took her to the police station and I took a statement and they were really rough with her, and when she came out I said ‘what did you think of that?’ and she said she never wanted to do anything like that again, it felt like abuse. And that struck me. That’s where it came from, that first one.
So a lot of the things that happened aren’t me trying to be clever; a lot of these things really happened. A friend of mine had a younger brother who jumped off a tower block in East London and that’s where that came from. I just wanted to show that’s how a lot of people feel once they’ve had that experience, especially the Metropolitan police – they’re really rough with young, black people.
A spirited and intimate look at American icon and activist Pete Seeger, and his life and his accomplishments. Pete Seeger transformed a classic American musical style into a form of peaceful protest against war, segregation, and nuclear weapons. Drawing on his extensive talks with Seeger, Alec Wilkinson delivers a first hand look at Seeger's unique blend of independence and commitment, charm, courage, energy, and belief in human equality and American democracy. We see Seeger, the child, instilled with a love of music by his parents; Seeger, the teenager, hearing real folk music for the first time; Seeger, the young adult, singing with Woody Guthrie. And finally, Seeger the man marching with the Rev. Martin Luther King in Selma, standing up to McCarthyism, and fighting for his beloved Hudson River. The gigantic life captured in this slender volume is truly an American anthem.
Though it is the fastest-growing religion in the world, Islam remains shrouded in ignorance and fear for much of the West. In No god but God, Reza Aslan, an internationally acclaimed scholar of religions, explains this faith in all its beauty and complexity. Beginning with a vivid account of the social and religious milieu in which the Prophet Muhammad forged his message, Aslan paints a portrait of the first Muslim community as a radical experiment in religious pluralism and social egalitarianism. He demonstrates how, after the Prophet’s death, his successors attempted to interpret his message for future generations–an overwhelming task that fractured the Muslim community into competing sects. Finally, Aslan examines how, in the shadow of European colonialism, Muslims developed conflicting strategies to reconcile traditional Islamic values with the realities of the modern world, thus launching what Aslan terms the Islamic Reformation. Timely and persuasive, No god but God is an elegantly written account of a magnificent yet misunderstood faith.
This month's author, Dan Everett (Don't Sleep, There are Snakes) has his own webpage at Illinois State University, (although a note there says he has taken a position elsewhere, so the page could vanish at any moment). He does have quite a bit there to explore. This section is a good place to start. My favorite file is this song.
Here is a bit of spoken Pirahã:
As a supplement to the book, I highly recommend this New Yorker profile: The Interpreter. It will give you some idea of how others in the field of linguistics view his work. If you don't have the time for that, try this NPR profile which also contains a nice demonstration of whistle and hum speech or this Guardian profile which includes a couple sound files as well. The hardcore language buffs among our Esteemed Readers will want to check out this article and Daniel Everett/Steven Pinker exchange.
Here's a talk for courtesy of Fora.TV:
There is a documentary about Everett, it seems with no release date as yet. More info and trailer can be found here.
Updated: Fresh action today from Amnesty International:
80 members of the Guarani Kaiowá Y’poí Indigenous group in Brazil have been threatened by armed men hired by local farm owners. The group reoccupied farmland they claim as part of their ancestral territory near Paranhos, Brazil, in April. They have been threatened and being prevented from leaving their encampment. This has left them in a critical situation with no access to water, food, education and health.
The Federal Indigenous Health Agency (FUNASA) has not provided care to the community allegedly claiming this is due to lack of security. The community’s children are falling sick due to the lack of medical assistance, water and the dry weather conditions. The community has denounced their situation, but so far no action has been taken.
The book has drawn much attention based on former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens' review in the New York Review of Books. 
Rights Readers author and California death row inmate Jarvis Jay Masters (Finding Freedom: Writings from Death Row) has a hearing coming up early in January. Check The Campaign to Free Jarvis Jay Masters or Facebook for updates. His latest book, That Bird Has My Wings
is now out in paper, so have a look there for more of his story.
Starting with Human Rights Day (December 10) Amnesty International is launching it's year long celebration of it's fiftieth anniversary. If you missed it, AIUSA Executive Director, Larry Cox was on NPR's Talk of the Nation 
,
podcasts. Take note also that the PBS site has bonus 
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This month we are reading 
This month we are reading 
In my previous post on Hector Aristizabal's 
, I mentioned an older Uprising Radio interview with our friend Sonali Kolhatkar. Today she has a fresh interview with Hector and his co-author Diane Lefer. Again, don't miss Hector at 
For February we have chosen Toni Morrison's 
:
by Peter Akinti. Kicking off our supplemental links this mont, Akinti introduces his book in this video:
For January, we have chosen Reza Aslan's 
This month's author, Dan Everett (
) has 
Other fun stuff:
. Interview with author Monte Reel 
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